Modern Flight Management Systems (FMS) include comprehensive aircraft navigation and performance estimation functions. These functions enable performance based navigation operations with a high degree of accuracy. However, current functions are very complex, and have a steep learning curve for flight crews. One of the most common areas of difficulty involves Vertical Navigation (VNAV).
VNAV provides the ability of predicting aircraft performance during various climbs and descents while providing vertical guidance relative to a flight plan. In addition, VNAV also provides guidance commands to the flight control system, and as a result will automatically initiate aircraft movements. This results in the flight crews needing to be aware of what VNAV is planning on doing next so that they are prepared for impending aircraft movements. Current systems use multiple display pages (such as route windows, legs pages, VNAV thrust pages and vertical situation display) mixed into the flight plan data to describe the systems operation to the flight crew. Such systems are difficult to read and understand, and have presented training challenges because of the complexities associated with VNAV.
Therein lies a need for a schematic display for presenting vertical navigation data without the aforementioned shortcomings.